THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE DEAD NAPOLEON. 



P.v A. M. r.KOADLI.V. 

 Author of " Xtipoleoit in Caricature." ami so on. 



A CAREFUL Study of the various foruis of pictorial 

 satire relating to Napoleon in connection with m\ 

 book ''Napoleon in Caricature," led me incidentally 

 to collect and examine the numerous portraits (some 

 of them obviously more or less caricatures), which 

 were made between Julv, 1815, when he went on 

 board the " Bellerophon," and his death at Longwood, 

 nearly six years later. A series of happy accidents 



Mr. Ihbetson"s term of St. Helena services (accord- 

 ing to the official record) dates from July 28th, 1815, 

 to June 27th, 182.}. On the resignation of Mr. 

 Balcombe he became "' Purveyor to the Household " 

 at Longwood, near w hich house he took up his abode, 

 He was with Napoleon at the time of his death, 

 made a sketch of him as he laj- dead, superintended 

 the sale of his effects, and afterwards drew up 







--^7- 





FlGURE 97. 



The adjustment of accounts from March, 1818, and October, 1820. made three weeks after .Napoleon's death, between 

 .Assistant Commissary Ibbetson and Count Bertrand, now in the possession of one of Ibbetson's descendants. 



enabled me to identify as the principal of the St. Helena 

 portraitists. Mr. Denzil Ibbetson (1775-1857), an 

 officer of the Commissariat, who joined the department 

 as a clerk in June, 1808, and attained the rank of 

 Deputy Assistant Commissary-General in October, 

 1810. On Christmas Day, 1814, he was promoted 

 to be Assistant Commissary-General, and in the 

 following \-ear proceeded to St. Helena on board the 

 " Northumberland," upon the deck of which ship 

 he made his first sketches of the Great Man. 



the general statement of accounts now repro- 

 duced for the benefit of future historians of the last 

 phase. (See Figure 97). The life-story of Denzil 

 Ibbetson. written by me and illustrated by a large 

 number of his unknown and unpublished sketches 

 of Napoleon and his companions in exile now in 

 my collection, will be published in the April number 

 of The Century Magazine of New York. One of 

 the portraits of the Emperor made on board the 

 " Northumberland," given by Ibbetson to Theodore 



